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In this mailing:
* Chris Farrell: Biden's Border
* Burak Bekdil: Turkey: How Erdogan's Pledge for Reform Collapsed in Five Months


** Biden's Border ([link removed])
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by Chris Farrell • April 29, 2021 at 5:00 am
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* The surge of unaccompanied children and families to the southern border -- as well as the surge of non-marijuana drug trafficking across the border -- is a humanitarian crisis, a health crisis and a national security crisis.
* The Biden administration has ordered the termination of all work. Construction sites and crews are, essentially, idle -- at the reported cost of more than $1 million dollars per day in Cochise County, Arizona alone. It is costing $1 million taxpayer dollars per day -- meaning more than $100 million so far for just one site -- to figure out how, exactly, to unwind the half-completed construction project .....
* While you are considering the human and dollar costs of Biden's "children in cages," consider the construction sites and equipment staged in remote areas, or the drug loads packed into Chevy Suburbans, stripped of everything in the interior but the driver's seat, and painted matte black for their 2AM runs north through the dry arroyo beds into the United States.
* Some of that equipment was looking for people other than illegal aliens -- other people (terrorists) bearing ill-will towards the United States. The radiological detection devices? Gone. The license plate readers and recorders? Gone.
* Mexico is an utterly corrupt, failed narco-state. The "best" thing Mexico has going for it is the "efficiency" of the drug cartels.... Perhaps Biden's border legacy will be another type of 9/11 attack, launched across his now virtually non-existent border with Mexico?

Just west of Naco, Arizona, former President Trump's 30-foot border wall runs through the desert and begins to ascend through the Coronado National Memorial and into the Huachuca Mountains – until it doesn't. Work was not completed. The Biden administration has ordered the termination of all work. Construction sites and crews are, essentially, idle – at the reported cost of over $1 million dollars per day in Cochise County, Arizona alone. Pictured: Idle equipment at a wall construction base in Cochise County. (Image source: Chris Farrell)

The surge of unaccompanied children and families to the southern border -- as well as the surge of non-marijuana drug trafficking across the border -- is a humanitarian crisis, a health crisis and a national security crisis. It all belongs -- 100% -- to President Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr.

The illegal alien surge has been promoted and advertised for since June 28, 2019, when every single one of the Democratic presidential primary candidates raised their hands and said they would support free health care to all illegal immigrants in the United States. That was the first step in a cynical political ploy to permanently replace a segment of the American electorate with "more obedient voters from the Third World" -- while masquerading as compassion and care.

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** Turkey: How Erdogan's Pledge for Reform Collapsed in Five Months ([link removed])
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by Burak Bekdil • April 29, 2021 at 4:00 am
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* "We don't see ourselves elsewhere but in Europe," Erdoğan said on November 21. "We envisage building our future together with Europe."
* According to Turkish news site Gazete Duvar, a total of 128,872 people have been indicted in the past six years for insulting Erdoğan. Of those, 27,824 had to stand trial and 9,556 were convicted.
* Apparently, Erdoğan wants a democratic system without opposition.
* But who cares about the Constitution in a country where the governing bloc is proposing to close down even the Constitutional Court, in addition to banning opposition parties? All these autocratic measures occurred in the less than half-year since Erdoğan pledged democratic reforms.
* A few years ago, then Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu had vehemently refuted claims that Turkey was a second-class democracy. He was right. Turkey has since remained a third-class democracy.

71-year-old journalist and author Ahmet Altan was released from prison in Turkey this month. He had been unlawfully imprisoned for nearly five years, since he was detained in 2016 over allegations that, during a TV program, he disseminated "subliminal messages" related to a coup attempt, as well as for articles he had written criticizing the government. Pictured: Altan arrives at his home in Istanbul following his release from prison on April 14, 2021. (Photo by Bulent Kilic/AFP via Getty Images)

His critics often joke that when President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pledges democratic reforms, one should run away immediately. His latest charm offensive in November, aimed at repairing Turkey's badly-strained ties with the West and Western institutions, has proven that the joke still holds value.

"We don't see ourselves elsewhere but in Europe," Erdoğan said on November 21. "We envisage building our future together with Europe." Two days later, Defense Minister Hulusi Akar described NATO as the "cornerstone of our defense and security policy" and said that Turkey was looking forward to cooperating with the incoming administration under Joe Biden in the United States. Erdoğan also promised a bold package of democratic reforms.

Less than five months later, Italy's Prime Minister Mario Draghi had to call Erdoğan a "dictator." That was not because an experienced European politician wanted to insult a Muslim head of state.

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